Why Michigan HS football team has added a surprising coach to address its big void after shooting
It was a few weeks after Buck Myre’s son, Tate, was killed in the Oxford High School shooting in November.
Or maybe, a few months.
Buck Myre can’t remember times or places because he was still numb.
"I was in a fog for three months," he said.
Tate's friends and teammates were coming over to the Myre house, going up to his room, sitting on his bed, staring at his awards, trying to be near him. And family friends were coming over — huntin’ buddies and old coaching friends — every night for weeks, just hanging out.
People gravitate to Buck the same way they were drawn to his son, the star athlete and the leader of the Oxford, Michigan, football team.
"The Myres were there for people to come in and cry and talk about Tate," Oxford football coach Zach Line said. "I know they were giving people more comfort than we were giving them. I think there was even a certain point where they wanted to be alone but they still continued to help people."
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Sometime during those foggy days, Line asked Buck Myre to join the Oxford coaching staff for the 2022 season, which began in earnest on Monday with the first team practices across the state: “Buck, we need you.”
Sometime during those foggy days – almost every day – the stories came rolling in.
"Our phone was blowing up about stories about Tate helping special-needs kids, mentoring middle schoolers," Buck said. "We knew he was doing good things but we had no idea how much he was doing."
And sometime during those foggy days, Buck was approached by Krista Wilder. Tate had mentored her son, Preston, and he was having a hard time after the shooting that left four students dead.
"Tate always took time for Preston, who's had trauma in his life, quite a bit of the trauma for a young kid," Buck said. "And Tate took time and mentored him."
So Buck took Preston into Tate’s room.
"We sat up there and looked at all of Tate's awards and we just hung out in Tate’s room for a while," Buck said.
Wilder proposed an idea: "What would you think about forming a nonprofit and starting a mentor program?"
Buck, we need you…
"And I'm like, hmm, kind of funny you say that," Buck said. "Because it's something we've been talking about for years."
An instinct to help others.
Like father, like son.
'A mental battle every single day'
Buck Myre is a fixer.
"When this happened, I go in problem-solving mode, and I want to fix it," Buck said. "So immediately I start researching counselors that have experienced this and found out in a hurry that they don't exist, not unless I wanted to move my family to Parkland or Columbine – that's how rare this is what we're going through."
He found plenty of local counselors who had dealt with trauma but none that had experienced the layers and complications of a school shooting – the media attention, the national spotlight, community heartache, the unbelievable loss, the complete senselessness, the crush of emotion and the incredibly jarring suddenness of it all.
This was new to Michigan.
"The counselor was very clear with us on our first night there," Buck said. "He's basically like, ‘Listen, you guys, all I can tell you is this trauma that you guys are going through right now; it's the pinnacle of trauma, it's the top one.
"He's like, I don't want to scare you. But I want to let you know, the odds are stacked against you. There's a 95-plus percent chance that you and your wife will get divorced and your family breaks up."
Now, thinking back, Buck is grateful that he heard those words.
"It scared the bejesus out of all of us," Buck said. "It got me, as the leader of the family, thinking about this. No, you are not gonna fix this, Buck. I have to respect where everybody in my family is in the grieving process and not get frustrated. We wouldn't be where we are today if it wasn't because of that. It's been quite a battle getting to this point. I can tell you that. It's so crazy. It's just a mental battle every single day."
Trying to fix it
When the TV trucks finally disappeared, the spotlight dimmed and the national focus moved to the next mass shooting, all that was left was a tremendous, painful, unimaginable void.
Buck spent hours with his friend, Steve Claxton, and they started brainstorming about creating a mentoring program.
"It was wintertime now," Buck said. "He's got a wood burning stove in his garage and he and I would sip on old fashions in his garage and just kick tires and think about it."
Buck went into fixer mode.
How could they help kids? How could they reach the ones who feel so alone and don’t feel connected, the ones who are suffocating and struggling with mental health issues? How do you give them a road map out of the darkness?
Buck has strong beliefs: Being part of a community matters, feeling loved matters, having a close friend matters and being part of something bigger than yourself matters.
Like father, like son, right?
"Scott's a big-time researcher," Buck said. “A research nerd, he likes to call himself."
Claxton started trying to find mentoring programs to model.
"There wasn't any," Buck said.
Not like how they wanted to do it.
They named the organization 42 Strong after Tate’s football number, and decided to base the entire organization around what Tate stood for.
But there was a problem. It was hard to identify a single attribute that made Tate so special. Everybody saw him through a different lens. Even though he was just 16, he had a layered personality, seemingly changing in different settings, a chameleon of decency and goodness becoming different things to different people.
"He had a huge group of friends – say 10 guys, 10 girls,” Buck said. "They would always come over to our house and hang out. We’d grill them dogs, and they would just do their thing."
Buck posed a question to Tate’s friends.
"We're putting together this mentoring program, and we're going to base it around Tate’s traits," Buck told Tate’s friends. "You guys get together and talk about what your favorite traits are that he had."
Buck’s family did the same thing. Then, something cool happened.
Everybody came up with something different.
The boys listed things like Tate’s accountability and loyalty.
The girls listed how Tate was humble, trustworthy, caring and fun.
They combined the lists and boiled it down to Tate’s 12 traits, which has become the core of 42 Strong.
The final list reads like a map on how to be a good, decent person: being trustworthy, caring, fun, positive, teachable, humble, confident, selfless, hard worker, respectful, accountable and loyal.
Measuring up to his legacy
The day after the shooting, Line went to Home Depot, bought some wood and paint, and started building a 42 sign.
"I don't know what that meant," Line said.
Line grew up in Oxford and wore No. 42 – a jersey that symbolizes the most respected player on the Oxford football team. Line played seven years in the NFL, including three with the New Orleans Saints, where he again wore No. 42.
"Forty-two meant so much to this community," Line said. "Obviously, it’s the number I wore, my brother and my other brother wore, and it’s been a lifelong number for me. But Tate took it and wore it a different way than anybody’s ever worn it before."
Line went to his garage and started making a 42 sign.
"I'm not a carpenter," Line said. "I'm not a craftsman. I can't cut a straight line. But somehow … "
Line was cutting wood while bawling his eyes out, sawdust flying in the air, measuring everything, squinting through the sadness, trying to make it perfect.
You want to know Tate’s legacy? All these adults trying to live up to the example set by a teenager.
"I was just measuring the exact width of the numbers because that's what Tate would have done," Line said. "When he was at practice, he was perfect. I knew exactly what he was going to do on the football games on Fridays because he practiced like it to a tee. When he made a play, I had seen that 10 times in practice. So to me, if I was going to build something, even though I'm not a carpenter by any means, it had to be perfect because that's what Tate represented."
The sign was probably 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide. Line painted it gold and navy blue – Oxford's school colors – and stuck it in his yard where it remains.
"I’m fortunate that I didn’t cut off a finger," Line said. "With the help of Tate and me bawling my eyes out that night, I was able to make a perfect 42. But I think I had help on that one."
In Oxford, there is a hard demarcation in time.
Everything that happened before Nov. 30. And everything that happened after.
Because it changed everybody and everything.
"After November 30th, I came up with a personal motto, 'Show up and shut up,'" Line said.
It was his personal goal to be there for his players.
Just to pay attention to them. Not to try to give them answers but to hear their pain.
In the days after Nov. 30, Line tried to bring the boys together as much as possible.
"Being on a team gives you power," Line said. "It gives you someone to lean on, just if you need to talk. That's what the team is for. So these guys have done a great job of doing that."
But not all of them. Grief does not play out in a straight line. Some of the boys were drifting away, struggling in isolation.
"Mom and dad would call and we did a couple of house calls," Line said. "We did that because we knew being alone was the hardest part."
Coach 'em up
Years ago, Line asked Buck to join the Oxford football program. Buck played and coached youth football as his boys were growing up, developing a reputation in Oxford for connecting with players – motivating them while teaching them far more than football.
But Buck gave up coaching when Tate reached middle school.
"I don’t want the perception that my boys are getting preferential treatment," Buck told Line.
"Your boys are studs," Line countered.
"We’ll have to agree to disagree," Buck said. "When Tate graduates, I’ll think about it."
Sometime after Nov. 30, Line approached Buck again. He wanted Buck to join his varsity coaching staff.
For the boys.
"We need you," Line said. "I love how genuine and real you are. You're not afraid to show people your emotions. You aren’t afraid to cry in front of people. And we need you around. These boys are struggling and they need to see that you're struggling, too; and it's okay that they're struggling. It's okay to feel what they're feeling."
Line was persistent.
"When am I going to have time for coaching?" Buck asked.
He had a full-time job and was devoted to 42 Strong.
"As we start talking about it, I started seeing, you know, Tate's buddies are still coming over quite a bit, just sitting in his room, and I was seeing how hard it was on them," Buck said. “He was their leader."
Finally, after talking it over with his family, Buck agreed to coach tight ends on varsity.
Tate’s position.
"I think that kind of takes the elephant out of the room," Line said. "Because Buck will talk about Tate and I think it gives the kids power, to see Buck still trying to improve the lives of young players. He's a constant mentor. It's powerful to have him around. It's hard to explain."
Getting the ball rolling
Tate was dating Braydee Elling, an Oxford cross-country runner.
After Nov. 30, Buck and his wife, Sheri, started hanging out with Braydee’s parents.
"Salt of the earth people," Buck said.
Somehow, they found it easier to be with new friends.
"What Sheri and I found going through this process, it was really hard to be around people we were close with, which is strange," Buck said. "You figure you want to be around those people."
It didn’t make sense to Buck.
"We talked to our counselor about it," Buck said. "He's like, ‘Buck, I don't have an answer for you. Trauma does weird things, man. You can't fight what it's feeding you.' So we were trying not to fight it, just rolling with it – whatever feelings it's given us."
But they grew so close that Jenna Elling, Braydee’s mother, was asked to join the 42 Strong board of directors, along with Buck and his two sons, Trent and Ty, as well as Wilder and Claxton, Buck’s hunting and fishing buddy.
Line, too, was asked to join the volunteer, seven-person board, which he considers a tremendous honor.
"We just started meeting a couple times a week," Line said, "and it felt like we were building the plane as we're flying it."
Buck’s two boys, Trent and Ty, created training videos for the mentors. Each is required to go through six hours of training.
"We just kind of started chipping away at these training modules and getting the videos made and putting together our curriculum," Buck said. "And our curriculum is based around Tate’s traits."
42 Strong is a peer-to-peer mentoring program that brings together a high school student with a middle schooler.
But what kids should be paired up?
The board developed a precise, systematic approach to it.
In early April, a group from 42 Strong spent two days at Evergreens Coffee and Bakeshop in Oxford interviewing more than 100 mentors.
"They let us take over the place," Buck said. "Tate played football with the owner’s son, Gavin. And we interviewed all the mentors. We had about 12 doing it – some good friends of mine and a couple of teachers helped out."
They were getting to know each of the mentors, trying to figure out what made them tick. Then, they gave the mentees questionnaires, trying to figure out their personality traits.
"Now we've got all this information logged into our system," Buck said. "We're pretty high tech."
In May, 42 Strong held "Match Day," bringing together all the mentors and middle school students and letting them get to know each other in team-building exercises. When the day was done, the middle schoolers wrote down their preferred mentors.
"When you're making pairing, the number one thing is mentee preference," Buck said.
So they matched them up.
"So far, it's been phenomenal," Line said. "We've had so many people reach out and say how much it's helped. I don't think they understand the changes they're making in the world. If every community had a 42 Strong in their community, I think the world would be a lot better place."
There are 250 kids in the program, which forces kids to get off their phones, go outside their comfort zone and focus on Tate’s traits.
Basically, trying to be a better person.
"Our phones are blowing up with experience that the mentees are having," Buck said. "And the hidden value here, which we didn't really realize was going to be was, the mentors are getting a lot out of this.
"We're changing the world where we are living, right here in Oxford."
Buck said he believes 42 Strong will spread to other communities. While that is not the goal, the organization is being built so that it can be replicated.
"We're going to make it as bad-ass as we possibly can here in Oxford, and people are going to be screaming for it to come to their communities," Buck said.
Then, his voice changed and he thought about the accused shooter.
"When you think about it, this kid who did the shooting, he didn't have a friend," Buck said. "He did not have a buddy."
"How do you get that kid into your program?" I asked.
"We talk about that at every board meeting, and I don't have a good answer for you yet," Buck said. "But what we believe is the secret sauce there is, our mentors and mentees need to find those kids for us. They're in the trenches at school every day. They'll go find that kid sitting at lunch alone. Put your arm around him say come on over here eat lunch with us."
'Hi, dad'
Buck has no idea how he’s going to manage a full-time job, 42 Strong and coaching.
"I'm gonna do the best I can," he said. "I'm gonna be there as much as I possibly can. I'm not a guy that that does anything half-ass. So my guess is once it's full on, it's just going to be 20 hours a day between work, coaching, 42 Strong and sleeping four hours."
Line expects this to be a complicated season, just being back on a field without Tate.
"There's gonna be times that these kids are gonna feel emotion," Line said. "And that's OK. I don't know if it'll be the first practice. I don't know if it'll be the second practice. I don't know if it'll be the first game, or the second game. But everybody on this team is gonna have something that they're gonna feel sad about. That's only to be expected. So we welcome those things. Family is our hashtag and together is our mantra."
Since Nov. 30, Buck has had one dream about Tate.
"It was just a really short thing where, you know, sometimes dreams don't make sense," he said. "So I made a day trip to heaven and Tate made his little five-second entry in the dream. All I saw was his face, and he just said, ‘Hi dad.’
"And that was it."
It was powerful enough to wake him up.
"Tate is looking down on us," Buck said. "And I'm sure he wants us to get on with our lives because that’s who he was. But the feelings that we have, that the trauma has caused, I can't explain it."
Buck made sure to tell me the dream story before he told me one last story.
It was about the day they presented Kade Rushlow, an Oxford student, with a scholarship from the Tate Myre Memorial Scholarship.
"We've known Kade’s family forever," Buck said. "Great kid, great, great, great family. So he won the award. We go over to the house. It was a surprise to Kade and pretty emotional."
They started taking pictures.
"It's Kade’s whole family," Buck said. "We got mom's phone, and we were taking pictures. And then they're like, 'All right, you guys get in it.'
"So a neighbor comes over and grabs mom's phone, and we get in the picture. And then they start snapping pictures."
That night, Buck got a text.
"You know how when you take a picture, you take six or seven or eight," he said. "She was swiping through the pictures and they are of her family. Then, it comes to the one with us in it. In the very first picture, there is a rainbow in the shape of a football; and then, in the next picture, the rainbow is gone."
He paused.
"Tate was there," Buck said. "He's with us. He's looking over us. No doubt about it."
Follow Jeff Seidel on Twitter @seideljeff.